pro and anti-abortion: pro/anti partial birth?

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I'm pro-choice. I fully support a woman's right to choose

however...

if you carry the baby long enough to get a so-called "partial-birth abortion", that's just wrong.

Carry the baby to term and give the kid up for adoption.

Sure, I can see getting an abortion at weeks into contraception but up to 30 weeks - when the kid has an almost fully developed brain and lungs and all that? Come on! It's like sticking a poker into the skull of a newborn. It's cold, evil, callous and cruel.

I think a lot of people share your qualms about partial-birth abortion. I could support a partial-birth abortion ban as long as exceptions in extenuating circumstances (for legitimate medical reasons) were possible. No woman should be forced to put her life in jeopardy if a pregnancy goes badly.

mmmmm...Fetus!

Some pregnancies can kill the woman. Who should determine a woman's hazard? The government or the woman?

A law compelling a women to go through to labor essentially makes here a brood mare.

ruveyn

truer words were never written and therein lies the whole of the argument. (I have never understood why people think that it's always a perfect pregnancy and there is no medical problems whatsoever, just some selfish woman not wanting to have a baby.)

Again, I see nothing wrong with it in the slightest even 1 minute before birth even if the only reason is she simply doesn't want a baby.

folks, you cannot get an abortion in the very early stage of pregnancy however much you may want one you have to wait and I think it's at 12 weeks usually. i only ever had one and i was shocked that they just don't whip it out immediately, you have to wait, ugh.

i'd rather have been aborted myself, it would have been a lot less painful than life. i feel that i have had life inflicted upon me.

you think i wanna be here?

putting up with this crap called life?

as someone who actaully knows a bit about medicine, most birth defects can not be dectected until the second trimester, like neural tube defects, like Spina bifida, in which the spine cord is exposed, and can present with Encephalocele, or brain matter protruding from the skull or Anencephaly, or when part of the brain and skull is missing. those children are usally paralyzed, suffer mental problems, seizures and rarely survive long peroids of time.

my wife never went through labor and we have a beautiful little girl.

And as far as medical problems to the child - how's her or she gonna know from normal? Ask Strapples if he's happy.

with a good Chianti...

*drools*



seriously though, I agree with the OP. I think it's ok up to the moment when the central nervous system is fully formed, but that's just my personal demarcation line.

I used to agree with that, but a thread here in PPR showed me I had missed two good arguments for either an earlier limit or for abolishing contraceptive abortions.

Opponents of abortion often argue nothing should be done after conception because from that moment there is the potential for human life. I think putting the demarcation line at conception is arbitrary even when including potential as a criterion, but that doesn't mean potential should be dismissed. If I had brain damage that made it impossible for me to regain consciousness, ever, I'd count that as being dead, and you'd be welcome to do with my remains anything that is useful. Transplant the organs, use the skeleton for biology lessons, etc. I don't care that my remains would still be breathing and could be maintained as live tissue for years. What you see would just be a fancy tissue culture, but I would be dead. But if there is a chance my brain might repair itself, please do keep me on life support, because I'm not dead yet. If my demarcation line between dead and not dead depends not only on what my brain does now, but also on what my brain may do in the future, I can hardly deny that same reason to others.

Then we have to take a wider view of suffering. If we want to reduce suffering, we have to think about who suffers from the consequences of an action. Many people suffer from knowing that abortions are carried out. Should we care even if we don't share that suffering? Depends. If half the world's population suffered terrible mental anguish at the thought that red haired left handers exist, and their suffering could only be eased by exterminating all red haired left handers, I'd tell them tough luck, get a grip on yourself. If the same people suffered the same anguish over the killing in Darfur, I'd encourage them to stop it. One difference is whether the mental anguish comes from empathy or hate, another whether the action that would reduce the mental anguish would also reduce the suffering of others. I don't think you can put all opponents of abortion into the same category on this score.

Abortion for medical reasons is defensible, but I join the social conservatives in saying that abortion as a form of contraception is very hard to defend, perhaps entirely indefensible. I am sure the social conservatives will join my demand to take whatever action is most effective to eliminate all contraceptive abortion. We can't stop people from having sex, so we must make sure that sex is infertile unless two people make a deliberate and well reasoned decision to have a baby. We must encourage homosexuality! That never produces accidental pregnancies. Develop reversible sterilization. Make it compulsory, so that people must make a conscious decision to have babies. Screw individual liberties, nothing is more important than preventing the murder of innocent babies!

Umm... Hello? Mr Limbaugh? Mr O'Reilly? Are you still with me? And where are all the Southern Baptists gone? And the Muslims? They were here a moment ago!

Back to being serious. I think there is a good case against contraceptive abortion. The case in favour of keeping abortion available as a form of contraception is based on the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancies. That is also a good argument. The conflict can be resolved by preventing unwanted pregnancies before conception. The two ways of doing that both infringe individual liberties. Either the liberty to have sex even if you don't want a child, or the liberty to have a child at your convenience or by accident or even against your will.

Here are four deliberately very different options that should help in choosing priorities.

1) Allow all abortion without question until some demarcation line is reached. Ignore all suffering that results from abortions.

2) Forbid all contraceptive (perhaps also medical) abortions, ignore the suffering caused by unwanted pregnancies and by back street abortions. They will happen.

3) Prevent all unwanted pregnancies by preventing all sex except what is intended to make a baby. I think that would need complete segregation of men and women except for meetings to have a baby. Make men and women live in different countries, with land mined and walled borders in between.

4) Prevent all unwanted pregnancies by reversible sterilization, force people to make a deliberate decision to have a baby.

so full democracy? the majority is always right? what if the majority loved fried foetuses served with a good Chianti?

What about the suffering of those who don't wish to be born and yet have had life inflicted upon them?

That would be the voluntary euthanasia thread.

No. Have a look at the bit I put in italics. Even if 99% suffered terribly from the existence of red haired left handers, I don't think that would give them a right to exterminate red haired left handers.


I'd tell them tough luck, get a grip on yourself. Well, it depends on what kind of foetus. If you want fried chick pea embryos, or later stages of development, I'll be happy to fry them for you. For the Chianti, you're on your own. And for myself, I'll rather boil mature chick peas than fry the immature.


If you can predict someone will not want to to exist, you shouldn't force existence on them. But how do you find out? You can't ask. If you find another way, for example if you can predict that someone with these genes will not want to live, then use genetic screening to avoid creating someone like that. If it happens anyway, once they're competent to make decisions they can also decide whether to carry on living. I would normally do what I can to discourage suicide because in most cases, the problems that make someone wish for oblivion are temporary. Where they are permanent, no one should be forced to endure a life they don't want and never will want. The problem lies in distinguishing between temporary and permanent.